Latest / A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast / Talks to Lucy McCaul, Daniel Knight & Dave Rennie about their choice of Enemy of the World (1/6)

Transcript

Talks to Lucy McCaul, Daniel Knight & Dave Rennie about their choice of Enemy of the World (1/6) · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

• 0:33
  Hamster with a blump pen knife for doing quicker Welcome back
• 0:37
  to hamster with a blump pen knife, the Doctor Who commentary
• 0:41
  podcast. Excuse me, I am back today.
• 0:45
  It's the four who rule. We've been to planet of evil.
• 0:51
  We've been to planet of fire. So of course, today we're going
• 0:56
  to Enemy of the World. We're we're breaking our theme.
• 1:01
  We're going into season 5. I am here with the deliriously
• 1:05
  wonderful Lucy McCall. Hello, Lucy.
• 1:08
  Hello. I think just delirious probably
• 1:10
  at this stage. Fair enough.
• 1:13
  The as ever handsome and wonderful Daniel Knight.
• 1:16
  Hello, Daniel. Hello Joe, I I never know what
• 1:20
  to say when you introduce me and start.
• 1:23
  Yeah, that's why I'll keep doing it.
• 1:27
  And of course, podcasts are extraordinaire now.
• 1:30
  Mr. Dave Rennie. Hello, Dave.
• 1:33
  Hello, Joe, Good to be back. I've not been on yours for a
• 1:36
  while now, what's going on? You were in the last season.
• 1:41
  Yeah, right. I've not I've not said the next
• 1:42
  season yet. It was the longest season in
• 1:44
  your time for the podcast. How's it all going?
• 1:48
  It's going really well. I've got a couple of new voices
• 1:54
  that will be coming on in the next couple of months when I get
• 1:56
  recorded. Yeah, sighted times.
• 2:01
  And you've been travelling the world as well.
• 2:03
  You've been. Was it Lithuania in the other
• 2:06
  day? Yeah, I was in Lithuania at the
• 2:08
  weekend and yeah, I mean, I've not got a TARDIS, but I've got a
• 2:13
  sort of. I want to travel all the Europe,
• 2:16
  so I want to get to all the countries eventually.
• 2:18
  Apart from Russia and Belarus, obviously, for obvious reasons.
• 2:21
  They can just kept getting my money.
• 2:25
  We were just talking about that earlier, weren't we Lucy?
• 2:26
  Because Lucy's been to a couple of stunning places in the last
• 2:30
  year too. Yeah, I went to Italy in
• 2:34
  September and Spain in January of this year and it was lovely.
• 2:39
  Unfortunately I've only been to Cambridge in the last year, but
• 2:41
  that was very nice, I've got to say.
• 2:43
  I could hear the bubble of a floating sphere coming around
• 2:47
  after me. Guys, it's wonderful to have you
• 2:50
  all back together again. I know we're going to have good
• 2:52
  fun today and I ask you all to give me your initial thoughts on
• 2:58
  Enemy in the World. What I'm going to say is pre
• 3:01
  discovery and then post discovery.
• 3:05
  And let's start with Daniel. OK, so pre discovery, pretty
• 3:12
  much like everyone else, I thought this is a bit dull, but
• 3:17
  it's like I, I, I included it as part of my top 60 for the 60th
• 3:23
  in the if you don't need to, if you only saw the smile of the
• 3:27
  Mona Lisa, you wouldn't see the rest of the picture.
• 3:28
  You wouldn't know how brilliant Leonardo's work was.
• 3:32
  So it's a bit like that. You only see a little bit of the
• 3:35
  jigsaw and to see the rest of it all now you get to, you get to
• 3:40
  appreciate it a lot more. I think it's very well directed.
• 3:44
  The first episode you got a huge amount of action.
• 3:47
  The second episode you've got a lot of character development.
• 3:51
  And then episode 3 kind of sort of seems to stall a little bit.
• 3:55
  You get some wonderful scenes with a comedy chef.
• 3:58
  There's a little bit more intrigue.
• 4:02
  And then episode 4, yeah, it's it's a really good story.
• 4:06
  I mean, people say it's a bond, it's a bomb spoof, but it isn't.
• 4:10
  It's more a historical drama set in the in the then future.
• 4:14
  I mean, you know, on the back of Astrid's helicopters 2018.
• 4:19
  So now it really is a period drama.
• 4:21
  But it's, yeah, I think it's a really, really good story.
• 4:24
  And it's great just to have a complete and yet another
• 4:29
  complete Season 5 story where there, you know, about 30 years
• 4:33
  ago there was literally nothing. I know what you're saying about
• 4:38
  episode 3, but Griffin the chef, I mean, that line where it goes.
• 4:41
  Was it? Oh, that's great.
• 4:42
  Yeah. Great.
• 4:44
  Peel those spuds. Yeah.
• 4:45
  Now. Oh, it's fabulous.
• 4:47
  We need more characters like that.
• 4:49
  And Doctor, what about you then, Lucy?
• 4:52
  Well, I only know it post discovery because I wasn't aware
• 4:55
  that it didn't exist, if you see what I mean.
• 4:58
  And I really like it. I I like that the idea of it.
• 5:03
  I like that. The spoilers, the twist.
• 5:06
  I think that works very well. Wow.
• 5:09
  Now don't worry, OK? I like the fact that that you
• 5:12
  get to see two Troutons for the price of 1 and that Jamie has a
• 5:17
  lot of action of his own and sort of gets to use his his
• 5:23
  skills as a fighter in quick thinking and and by himself and
• 5:28
  drive some of the plot. The bit about the people
• 5:31
  underground reminded me of there's a novel by Philip K Dick
• 5:36
  where there are people who are living manufacturing artificial
• 5:40
  organs as it happens, I think underground and they think that
• 5:43
  there's been a terrible, well, there has been a war, but they
• 5:45
  think that the surface is uninhabitable.
• 5:47
  And actually it is all the time and somebody goes up and
• 5:50
  discovers that. So it reminded me a bit a bit of
• 5:52
  that, but I like it and I like the, I like the strength of the
• 5:58
  supporting characters too. Wonderful.
• 6:01
  How about you and Dave? Always found the soundtrack
• 6:05
  really interesting, but it it was clearly always a visual
• 6:08
  story. There was there's long periods
• 6:10
  where on the soundtrack it was just Fraser Heinz Naritan and
• 6:14
  you thought OK, it was and it's always stuck out as obviously
• 6:19
  are different from the rest of the season.
• 6:21
  There's oddity in a monster season of espionage and, and
• 6:26
  people undercover. And, and so when it came back,
• 6:29
  it was announced, it came back. It was, I was always very
• 6:32
  curious about it because it thought, I wonder what I had a
• 6:35
  feeling it was going to be reassessed and in a good way.
• 6:38
  Because I think as I say, it was one that you really have to see.
• 6:41
  And then when you see it, I mean, I announced it first of
• 6:43
  all was just amazing. You know, we literally got the
• 6:46
  phone these 9 episodes and you can see it on Apple Player or
• 6:52
  whatever it was in two days time or.
• 6:54
  Did you stay up? You know, it drops at like
• 6:56
  midnight. Did you stay up?
• 6:57
  I was up until like 4:00 in the morning that morning.
• 7:00
  I think I did from my memory, yeah.
• 7:03
  And it's just such a bold sort of story, isn't it?
• 7:07
  I mean, it is very visual. I mean, there's a big, we'll see
• 7:11
  in this first episode, hovercrafts and trout and
• 7:13
  running about in the water. It's just, it's just brilliant
• 7:17
  to see Trouten's expressions and, and I think it's a great
• 7:20
  story and it's it's deserved to be reassessed supposedly because
• 7:25
  it it never got the love it should have had.
• 7:29
  I always found this really refreshing because in a season
• 7:32
  of bass under siege stories, this was a story that just went
• 7:35
  all over the world and just relished in the fact.
• 7:38
  But it's also really great character drama.
• 7:40
  So I thought the soundtrack came across really well.
• 7:43
  For me. It was like the one sort of
• 7:44
  future. This may be in the and the ice
• 7:47
  warriors. The couple that were missing.
• 7:49
  The characters were so strong that you could actually just
• 7:52
  listen to those as a story in its own right.
• 7:55
  Then when it came back and I saw it moving, I remember Barry
• 7:58
  let's whingeing and complaining about his own direction in this.
• 8:01
  I think it's one of the best stories he directed, possibly
• 8:03
  the best story he directed. Certainly Episode 1 and some of
• 8:07
  episode 6. Yeah, great fun.
• 8:10
  I'm I'm curious to see which one of us drops our salamander quote
• 8:13
  first as we go into this story. We'll see how patient we can be.
• 8:19
  But if you're already, shall we skip into episode 1?
• 8:23
  So we're going to do the accent quite a few times a week.
• 8:27
  You can just you got carte blanche to do it as ridiculously
• 8:30
  as you want. OK, when has that ever stopped
• 8:34
  you? Whether you got carte blanche or
• 8:36
  not? And 54321, off we go, straight
• 8:47
  into the toxico. Do you know what?
• 8:49
  I can still remember the feeling of putting this on that night,
• 8:53
  that buzz of watching brand new Doctor Who that was missing.
• 8:57
  I don't think there's a thrill quite like it, you know?
• 9:00
  No, it was amazing. It really was to see the words
• 9:05
  on the screen and it isn't episode 3, which is the I think
• 9:10
  it is the worst episode of the sex that we had.
• 9:14
  But this one is just I'm. Going to, I'm going to mount a
• 9:17
  defence for free when we get there, you know, because I think
• 9:19
  there's some really fun stuff in it.
• 9:21
  Oh, there's some good stuff in it, but I think it's just it
• 9:25
  wasn't the best of the sex to get preserved.
• 9:28
  Are you convinced, Daniel, that this is an Australian beach?
• 9:33
  I've never been to Australia but it looks suspiciously like
• 9:36
  Littlehampton to me. It does.
• 9:39
  It does. And it looks absolutely
• 9:42
  freezing. It does.
• 9:45
  As fact that could actually be Littlehampton in the summer, it
• 9:49
  probably is. He goes straight in, doesn't he?
• 9:51
  Strips down through his long Johns and goes straight to the
• 9:53
  northwest. Fantastic, though, he's just.
• 9:59
  Have you ever tried doing that thing when you kick your legs
• 10:01
  together in the air? I mean, I fell on my arse.
• 10:03
  When I tried that. And this is what you miss by not
• 10:11
  seeing the pictures. And in fact, I don't think they
• 10:15
  can replicate Trout's performance in the animation
• 10:17
  that they've done either. He's just so fluid, isn't he?
• 10:22
  I call his face like Quicksilver.
• 10:25
  Yeah, the other thing is that if if they try and do it in the
• 10:27
  animation, it it's over, it's not their fault, it's not the
• 10:31
  animators fault. But if you try and replicate the
• 10:35
  changes in expression in an animator in an animation, and
• 10:38
  they did try it with with one of the ones that I've watched, it
• 10:41
  just looks like too much because it looks like their eyes are
• 10:44
  going all the time and it looks like, but just because on a
• 10:47
  human face it's it's more subtle.
• 10:49
  But with any animation it can't be.
• 10:51
  So it doesn't really come across.
• 10:54
  I'm not sure if it's subtle on Trout's face, but.
• 10:57
  No, but you know what I mean. It's in on a human face.
• 10:59
  It's there in a moment and then gone the next moment.
• 11:01
  But with the animation it can't be so.
• 11:03
  You're right, that looks so fucking cold.
• 11:05
  That wall. I don't know it really.
• 11:06
  Does I bet you, Patrick? Did he say hey Rod to his fellow
• 11:12
  in the hovercraft? Yeah, is.
• 11:14
  That by a Co host of strictly come hamster there in.
• 11:16
  Australia. In 2018.
• 11:21
  See, this is quite nice because that's in the studio there,
• 11:23
  isn't it? No, Oh, oh, that order.
• 11:28
  Sorry. I think I'm a few seconds behind
• 11:30
  you because it Britbox was taking a little bit of time to
• 11:33
  to fire up. I know it's just when I watched
• 11:35
  it earlier tonight, but Astrid's bum is very, she's got very
• 11:39
  tight trousers on. There's quite a few words in
• 11:41
  this, Tony. You surprised me noticing things
• 11:44
  like that. They're going for an, they're
• 11:46
  going for an Avengers sort of look, can't they really?
• 11:50
  This is what's at the height of Diana Rigg as, as Emma Peel.
• 11:55
  In fact, I think Mary Peach was up for the part of Tara King.
• 12:00
  I think she was one of the was her somebody else.
• 12:02
  And Linda Thorson, of course, got it.
• 12:04
  And I think she, yeah, I think she was, she was one of the last
• 12:07
  three to to, you know, it was down to her and Linda Thorson.
• 12:12
  And I want to say an actress called, I want to say Tracy
• 12:15
  Reed, who's in one of the episodes called, oh, it's the
• 12:19
  one with Peter Jones in it, where they're the sort of the
• 12:22
  two guys who are they're, they're sort of planting,
• 12:28
  they're sort of setting up politicians.
• 12:31
  That could be any Avengers at the.
• 12:33
  Curious case of the curious case of the countless clues or
• 12:36
  something? I'll have to.
• 12:38
  I'll have to look it up. What do you think about Astrid
• 12:41
  Ferrier then, guys? Lucy.
• 12:43
  I think she's great. I really like her in this.
• 12:45
  She's really she has she's I think she's quite believable in
• 12:49
  the character and she is her character goes on a believable
• 12:57
  quote UN quote journey as well through, you know, from from
• 13:02
  sort of relative confidence and trying to deal with Ben who
• 13:06
  won't listen to her to to disillusionment and then
• 13:12
  determination to do something about it.
• 13:14
  And I think she holds her own against the other, the others in
• 13:19
  it really well, Bill Kerr and Patrick Troughton and and the
• 13:22
  others. She's she's, she's not.
• 13:27
  She may be sort of inferior in rank, but she's not playing
• 13:30
  second fiddle in performance to them.
• 13:32
  No. She's got our mean karate chops
• 13:35
  as a neck as well, doesn't she? Always good.
• 13:37
  Oh, and that bitch. Isn't she?
• 13:39
  Yeah, I think she's interviewed on on the DVD.
• 13:44
  I love the bit where she flirts with Yanesh the guard as well.
• 13:47
  He's very cute. Well, I mean, why wouldn't you?
• 13:51
  Yeah, look at all this. Our big budget filmlet.
• 13:53
  We're on the beach. Hovercrafts, guns, helicopters.
• 13:56
  I mean, from the shadows, you know, it does look like it's a
• 13:59
  sunny day. But I think they filmed this
• 14:02
  around sort of November, December time.
• 14:04
  So it would have been, I mean, there's poor old Deborah
• 14:07
  Watling, you know, swimming around in a mini skirt.
• 14:10
  Yeah, as usual, I. Wonder how long Covercrafts were
• 14:13
  around by this point, because obviously it's quite a savvy
• 14:15
  idea of that. I think at the time it would
• 14:18
  have been quite a novelty. Yeah, it was one of.
• 14:20
  Those it was one of those things that was the future, wasn't it
• 14:22
  though? Like airships, like if you see
• 14:25
  any, any kind of futuristic picture from the late 19th or
• 14:30
  early 20th century, we were all going to be turning around in
• 14:32
  airships. Nobody would be driving Rd.
• 14:34
  vehicles anymore. We'd all be in airships.
• 14:36
  And this hovercraft was the same.
• 14:38
  It's like, oh, there'll be hovercrafts.
• 14:39
  Everyone will drive in hovercrafts.
• 14:40
  It lost its novelty very, very well.
• 14:43
  I wish I had to check back. It lost its novelty very quickly
• 14:46
  though, because as soon as per we came along, there seemed to
• 14:48
  be a hovercraft waiting every time he had an action sequence.
• 14:51
  And they're like, I would love to see this in colour though all
• 14:54
  of this location and the music is great as well.
• 15:00
  It's all. Stop Music.
• 15:05
  Thing apparently Barry let's didn't realize that he could
• 15:09
  there's he he in his book who and me I've got the audio
• 15:13
  version and I think he said that when he he was doing this he
• 15:15
  didn't realize that he could actually spend some of his
• 15:18
  budget on original music. He thought he had to get stock.
• 15:24
  Stock stuff, well. He chose well, I think he.
• 15:26
  Yeah. It is very good.
• 15:28
  But this is all like this is very expensive for the time all
• 15:32
  of an actual. Helicopter.
• 15:34
  And it's everything in the first episode, isn't it?
• 15:36
  All the location footage, the helicopter, it's all there as
• 15:39
  your first night to get the viewers in.
• 15:43
  And so I suppose if 3 was the only one available, it really is
• 15:47
  unrepresentative of the rest of the.
• 15:49
  Story, isn't it? Yeah.
• 15:51
  Well then also, if you take an episode out of context, even if
• 15:54
  it's one that you think does flag a bit, it's not.
• 15:57
  You can't, sort of. It's like reading 1 chapter of a
• 15:59
  book. You'll never know what the rest
• 16:01
  of it feels like because you need to watch it with the rest
• 16:05
  of it. That shot is breathtaking, isn't
• 16:08
  it? That shot of the from the
• 16:09
  helicopter's point of view, going up of the expansor that's
• 16:13
  come like that looks like it's come from a movie.
• 16:15
  It does. Sorry, Dave, what are you going
• 16:17
  to say? Ed for Lord, I was going to say.
• 16:21
  I'm so sorry. No I was just thinking, Can you
• 16:24
  imagine if this would be the one that had been saved rather than
• 16:27
  episode 3? The difference in fan opinion,
• 16:30
  people. Would want the rest then,
• 16:31
  wouldn't they? Yeah, it would be.
• 16:33
  Like the web of fear, wouldn't it?
• 16:35
  Yeah, yeah, it would have been. There's a 2018 sign which is now
• 16:40
  in the past. Don't often say this, but I do
• 16:42
  feel quite sorry for Victoria, this Victorian miss who's now
• 16:46
  being confronted with hovercraft and helicopter.
• 16:48
  Look at how she's she's clinging on to Jamie, Absolutely.
• 16:51
  And of course he's not objecting at all, but.
• 16:54
  You just have to move her arm out of the way a bit so he could
• 16:56
  breathe. Yes, I bet Fraser Highs wasn't
• 17:00
  objective, no. Oh, no.
• 17:02
  Oh. It's great stuff though, and it
• 17:06
  moves fast as well. Did they date Deborah and Fraser
• 17:13
  or with it was it is it just something that did I hit?
• 17:18
  I think he certainly tried to do it.
• 17:19
  I don't know. I can't remember if he did or I
• 17:21
  think. He he dated Wendy, didn't he?
• 17:25
  I've got Debbie Watlin's autobiography Downstairs.
• 17:27
  Daddy's Girl. I'll read that between our two
• 17:30
  recordings and let you know. All right.
• 17:32
  I'm sorry about with with somebody recently.
• 17:34
  I can't remember who it was. And it seems to be that every
• 17:36
  story, if there was a female guest character who was, in his
• 17:40
  words, gorgeous, then he would be like, you've got two of the.
• 17:43
  Same, Yeah. Dominators, but two you're.
• 17:47
  Not talking about the beautiful cando.
• 17:49
  Are you the Dulcium? Yeah.
• 17:52
  Oh, she's gorgeous. Yeah, I can see why.
• 17:54
  Yeah, she is gorgeous. She's not that for toffee, but
• 17:56
  she's gorgeous. Was she?
• 17:59
  Not one of a fame model at the time or.
• 18:03
  He was going out with an actress, Susan George.
• 18:05
  Oh, wow. I think around this time,
• 18:07
  because I think there's a picture of them when they would.
• 18:10
  It might have been this or it might have been from Fury from
• 18:12
  the Deep and she's with him. There were there's a sort of
• 18:15
  behind the scenes picture of them.
• 18:17
  Oh I love how this has become gossip about Fraser Hynes's love
• 18:20
  life. Amazing.
• 18:22
  I'm so sorry. Didn't he?
• 18:25
  Come back from Spain with somebody as well and the two
• 18:28
  doctors I swear he was back with.
• 18:30
  Him, he was supposed to be chatting up.
• 18:32
  You know the scene where Dustari is, is outside the restaurant
• 18:37
  and there's that Lady who's on a balcony and she throws down the
• 18:40
  Rose. She's apparently the she was the
• 18:45
  wife or the girlfriend of somebody who was sort of like
• 18:48
  the location helping with the locations because on on the
• 18:52
  behind on the behind the scenes for in the studio, you can hear
• 18:56
  Gary Downey telling him off that you leave that Lady alone.
• 19:00
  Oh. Yes, he's always like the lady
• 19:02
  from. Gary Downey, But there we go.
• 19:05
  You want to talk about a ladies man?
• 19:06
  What's trout in? That Oh yeah.
• 19:08
  Yes, he's. Flirting with her.
• 19:10
  He has had any families at the end.
• 19:12
  Was it more than two? I think he lost count.
• 19:14
  He was doing a lot of checks every month.
• 19:17
  I mean, what a what a sly man. But he's adorable, isn't he?
• 19:24
  I mean, look at this. What is?
• 19:26
  He's he's. He's also when when he's not
• 19:32
  being the doctor, very, very good looking.
• 19:36
  Yeah, oh gosh, when he was younger as well, he was.
• 19:39
  He was a gorgeous boy. There are pictures of him being
• 19:41
  other characters that were just amazing.
• 19:44
  I don't know. I think when he's evil with
• 19:46
  Salamander, he's got something, you know?
• 19:48
  I've just got a thing about dictators I think though.
• 19:50
  With that accent as well. Well, they.
• 19:54
  Don't have to talk, Dave, you know, Sorry, I'm so sorry.
• 19:59
  It's his face. I mean, it's just such an
• 20:01
  expressive face, isn't it? Me, I'm the nicest possible
• 20:05
  person. Why do they hate you?
• 20:08
  Can't you tell them you've made a mistake?
• 20:09
  Says Victoria. There wouldn't be time.
• 20:12
  It's so wonderful as well. You think the doctor would be a
• 20:14
  terrible old ham when he's asked to act it up and he's like, I
• 20:17
  don't know what to do. I don't know what to say.
• 20:20
  It's a great cliffhanger, I think.
• 20:24
  Are we nearly there already? This looks like it's gone by
• 20:26
  very fast. Yes, the most marvellous man
• 20:29
  that's ever dropped out of the sky.
• 20:30
  Will you do something? Something for.
• 20:34
  Me probably. Cost you your life?
• 20:36
  Oh, the. Face, it's just so brilliant,
• 20:39
  isn't it? Look at that smile.
• 20:43
  David Whisker really knew how to write good dialogue, didn't he?
• 20:46
  This is definitely the same writer who gave us the Crusade,
• 20:50
  You know, power of the Daleks, evil of the Daleks.
• 20:56
  But even when he's saying no, I don't think so, He's still
• 20:58
  grinning in a very charming way. Irresistible.
• 21:03
  Arla popped off in that TARDIS with him.
• 21:08
  I don't think you put your jacket on when you've been shot.
• 21:10
  Well. To hold the dressing on, I
• 21:14
  suppose. Maybe, yeah.
• 21:16
  Like Napoleon. That looks like a sort of like a
• 21:19
  tailcoat. It's got a, It's got like a
• 21:21
  Yeah, it is. It's a tailcoat.
• 21:24
  I like Todeo's cat. Yeah, me too.
• 21:27
  Is that tartan? Yeah, yeah, she's got.
• 21:30
  I suppose I should ask you really, shouldn't I?
• 21:34
  Dave, that's black and white. Dave, we want you to identify
• 21:37
  what tartan it is because you're Scottish, See.
• 21:39
  That's really clever that you don't normally get that.
• 21:41
  She was on location there for a second, looking out a window and
• 21:44
  it was coming in from the outside and then it comes to the
• 21:46
  studio, so there's a real sense of inside and outside.
• 21:50
  Oh yeah, like you said earlier about Bailey's, I mean, did he
• 21:54
  die? Ford of this came back.
• 21:56
  Yeah, I think he did it. Would have been great for him.
• 21:59
  I've seen it because as you see. Why did?
• 22:01
  He think that he. Did that came back, wasn't it
• 22:03
  I'm. Not sure about that wallpaper
• 22:05
  though. Yes it is.
• 22:06
  No, I did think that the house decor is about was the city
• 22:11
  1960s. Well, I've got a question for
• 22:14
  all of you then, as we're sort of halfway through Episode 1 and
• 22:17
  we're doing this all action and it's about to emerge into a
• 22:21
  political thriller. Like it's quite unusual, this
• 22:26
  sort of tone for Doctor Who. Is there space in Doctor Who to
• 22:29
  tell this sort of story, or does this feel like a complete
• 22:31
  outlier? Dave.
• 22:34
  Oh yeah, I think there's a space for it.
• 22:37
  Doctor Who, you can do pretty much any story and it needed, I
• 22:41
  think. I mean, I know that they said
• 22:42
  the kids in the 60s were like, where's the monsters?
• 22:44
  I've just seen the Yeti and so on.
• 22:48
  But I think it was a good idea to break up.
• 22:51
  The space for every kind of story, you say?
• 22:52
  Even Nightmare and Silver. Or Johnny to the centre of the
• 22:57
  TARDIS or something like that. No, but.
• 23:00
  Hideous. Sorry.
• 23:01
  Why would I bring that up while we're watching this?
• 23:03
  Lucy, what do you think? I think so.
• 23:05
  And I think you're right. I think it does doesn't do any
• 23:08
  harm to sort of change things up a little bit.
• 23:09
  And there is still, although it doesn't seem to, that there will
• 23:13
  be much of one. There is still the science
• 23:16
  fiction element to come. And there's Bill Kerr playing
• 23:22
  against type, somewhat. Who was Bill Kerr?
• 23:25
  I don't really know much about him.
• 23:26
  He. Was, well, he was an actor and
• 23:28
  he did, he was known over here for being in Hancock's Half
• 23:32
  Hour. He played, he played basically a
• 23:35
  comedy Australian in that a kind of, yeah, sort of not very
• 23:41
  bright, cheerful, jolly. Which was then later repeated in
• 23:48
  there was ATV series called Citizen James starring Sid
• 23:51
  James. After Hancock fell out with
• 23:54
  Galton and Simpson they wrote a a sitcom for Sid James and
• 23:58
  Bilker was pretty much the same character.
• 24:00
  I think in that, along with Liz Fraser, the last thing I saw in
• 24:04
  him was a. Horror film called Razorback
• 24:07
  about giant killer pigs in the Outback.
• 24:10
  Oh, that sounds amazing. Which is exceptionally violent
• 24:14
  and actually really. Quite nasty in.
• 24:16
  Places No, the pigs are great and the acting is not bad
• 24:19
  either. But it's it's sort of you think
• 24:21
  you think it's going to be kind of a, you know, so bad.
• 24:24
  It's good horror film, but it is actually genuinely pretty nasty
• 24:26
  in places because of the humans, not because of the pigs.
• 24:29
  But he plays a a grizzled old hunter who's determined to get
• 24:32
  the last of these giant pigs. We can guarantee with the
• 24:38
  accent. Oh, well done.
• 24:40
  There we go. Done.
• 24:43
  I'm going to wait till there's, you know, a really great line.
• 24:47
  What do you think then, Daniel, about about this sort of tipping
• 24:50
  to spy fi? Oh well, I think it's quite a a
• 24:56
  pertinent plot line. A a, a man coming to power very
• 25:03
  much through his personality. And, you know, I think if doctor
• 25:10
  was to do a story like this about a power mad dictator and
• 25:13
  the doctor has to, it would be derived as being woke and it
• 25:17
  would be, oh, well, this is just, yeah, you're just having a
• 25:19
  go at Putin or just having a go at Trump or I mean, it's it's a
• 25:24
  very clever script, possibly ahead of its time.
• 25:27
  I mean, I mean, they were dictators in the in the 60s and
• 25:30
  70s in various different countries.
• 25:32
  But yeah, I think it's very, very ahead of its time.
• 25:36
  And I think, yeah, the, the flexibility of, of the format of
• 25:39
  Doctor Who should, should allow you to do stories like this.
• 25:43
  And I think you it's quite fans go.
• 25:46
  Oh yeah. Well, that's, that's the
• 25:47
  wonderful thing about Doctor Who.
• 25:49
  It's it's got such a flexibility, flexible format.
• 25:52
  And then you try and do something different.
• 25:54
  No, not like that. No, we don't want Doctor Who
• 25:56
  like that. And I think, yeah, I wonder
• 26:00
  whether that's sort of the reaction of of this story
• 26:03
  possibly, you know, over the years before we could actually
• 26:05
  see it was was that reason? Oh, well, you know, Doctor Who's
• 26:08
  got a flexible format, but apart from in Season 5, where every
• 26:12
  story is a monster story based on the siege story.
• 26:16
  And then along comes this. It does stick out like a sore
• 26:19
  thumb, but an attractive one as far as I'm going.
• 26:22
  Imagine if Trump had as much charm of Salamander man, he
• 26:26
  would have been very powerful. Unfortunately, he doesn't, and
• 26:30
  he is still very powerful. Yeah, that's terrifying.
• 26:33
  There was a nice bit just now, which this doctor does fairly
• 26:36
  often is for to to not admit that he doesn't know something
• 26:42
  but wait for people to tell him. So Giles is saying, oh, you
• 26:46
  know, his son store, you must have heard of that.
• 26:48
  And he's like, yes, well, we have heard something about it.
• 26:50
  Like I have no idea what you're talking about, but I'm just
• 26:52
  going to let you go on and not not let on that I don't know.
• 26:56
  And then he said, oh, he's remarkably handsome, don't you
• 26:58
  think, Jamie? What I find very odd about his
• 27:02
  characterization in this story is there is no other Patrick
• 27:05
  Trout on the tale where he has to be convinced to get involved
• 27:09
  in the action over about four episodes.
• 27:12
  And I know they're doing that deliberately.
• 27:14
  So he's got time to play Salamander and the Doctor and
• 27:17
  Salamander are meeting because that's expensive effect shot, so
• 27:20
  they have to keep the doctor out of the action for a long time.
• 27:22
  But every other story, Trout is in there head first straight
• 27:27
  into what's going on. And I do find that a bit weird
• 27:29
  is. It because he's dealing with
• 27:32
  sorry, is it because in this case he's not dealing with an
• 27:36
  alien like the Side Men or the Ice Warriors or the Yeti, he's
• 27:40
  dealing with a human being and that is making him think hang on
• 27:44
  a minute not. Just any human beings, one
• 27:47
  that's got his. Face and one that looks like it
• 27:49
  yeah, exactly you just a theory but.
• 27:53
  I think it's just that he's he's went.
• 27:54
  He thought, oh, I'm just landed. I'm going to the beach for a wee
• 27:58
  role in the in the CNN. Oh God, I've got to get involved
• 28:01
  in another plot now and I've got, I think he just wants a day
• 28:04
  off. There comes to a point in
• 28:07
  Episode 3 where he's going facts, Kent, I must have facts
• 28:11
  and I'm going. It's episode fucking free.
• 28:12
  Will you get on with it already you know?
• 28:16
  Sorry, Lucy, you were going to say.
• 28:17
  Something I was I was going to say that it it pays off later
• 28:21
  because he's never trusted them entirely.
• 28:26
  He wants to trust Mastrid because he's taken to her in a
• 28:32
  number of ways, but he doesn't trust Kent even from the
• 28:35
  beginning. And he he's, he's brought, he's,
• 28:40
  he keeps bringing things up like, well, what's this about
• 28:43
  and what's that about? And what's this about?
• 28:45
  Because he won't, because she's told him it might cost him his
• 28:47
  life to start with. And then as he says about, he
• 28:52
  says about Kent later, you seemed rather keen on killing
• 28:55
  people and you didn't seem to care very much about it.
• 28:58
  So it kind of the fact that he needs convincing because he's
• 29:03
  only seen Salamander on the screen.
• 29:05
  He's got these two people in front of him, one who appears to
• 29:08
  have rescued him, but he doesn't know the other one.
• 29:11
  And I think it it pays off because in the end you realize
• 29:15
  that he never really trusted he he didn't trust them from the
• 29:18
  start. And so he's while they're
• 29:20
  convincing him, he's sort of trying to gather what he thinks
• 29:24
  about it as well. I think Whitaker's really clever
• 29:27
  though, because he hides A twist behind another twist.
• 29:30
  So you've got that massive twist about the people underground,
• 29:33
  and so you're focusing on that for ages, and then Giles can
• 29:37
  sort of fade into the background for a little bit and then that
• 29:41
  twist at the end is just fabulous, so.
• 29:44
  He's got. Yeah, and he says I won't, I
• 29:46
  can't. And then he says your friends
• 29:48
  will suffer. Oh, what?
• 29:50
  Hang on a minute. Yeah.
• 29:54
  That's one I think we can talk about.
• 29:57
  We've got enough time to talk about later on, but I don't know
• 30:00
  the search for this at all. So why I wonder why Patrick
• 30:03
  Troughton chose that accent? Well.
• 30:05
  Why? There's a very funny.
• 30:06
  Story, Dave. About him rehearsing this?
• 30:10
  And Debbie? Waterling and raise the high as
• 30:13
  technically you're really going to do it like.
• 30:15
  That. What's that?
• 30:17
  Irish, you know. Well, it has to be completely
• 30:20
  different, doesn't it to to him, So it can't be so it can't it
• 30:26
  can't be a sort of an RP voice. And if it was a British regional
• 30:31
  accent, it would, I don't know how how it would sound.
• 30:35
  But also the idea of the sort of small the Spanish or Latin
• 30:42
  American villain is a trope from fiction that goes way back and
• 30:48
  it presents the character in another.
• 30:52
  You know, the whole get up of the character is different, his
• 30:55
  whole bearing, his outfit, the whole lot so.
• 30:58
  Is it problematic? Yes, I think so.
• 31:04
  Yeah, I think, I think there would be a bit of criticism if
• 31:07
  this was done there. And certainly if imagine if
• 31:10
  Shooty Gatwa tried to put on a Mexican accent.
• 31:15
  Yeah, I think there would be a bit of what an earth is going on
• 31:18
  that's insulting to Mexicans and and rightly so.
• 31:21
  Well. We don't.
• 31:23
  We don't really. We do sort of know.
• 31:24
  They tell us where Salamander supposed to have come from, but
• 31:27
  he is. He's one of those.
• 31:28
  Things. Where is it, Lucy?
• 31:30
  Somewhere in Mexico. Isn't it?
• 31:33
  Yeah. So it it, it is sort of it, it
• 31:37
  makes him completely different to the Doctor in a way that
• 31:40
  needs to happen because they need to be completely different
• 31:43
  to each other. And it is a lot like the early
• 31:48
  series of Mission Impossible where they'd always be swanning
• 31:51
  off to the Republic of Para Lumber or wherever.
• 31:56
  It was really or just with some terrible face makeup.
• 32:00
  Well, yeah, but you know, there was somebody would have to
• 32:02
  impersonate that it oh, they'd be a dictator who was being
• 32:05
  played by white actor because that was, although they did have
• 32:10
  slightly more diversity in the cast.
• 32:11
  But it, it was, it was a, it was a thing that that sort of a
• 32:16
  villain coming from that background was not unusual at
• 32:18
  that point. He is given a bit of makeup
• 32:21
  isn't he? Like he does have a darker face
• 32:24
  and it's weird how that seems to have slipped by where other
• 32:29
  stories have been given a bit more focus doing exactly the
• 32:32
  same thing. Oh, no one wants to take that
• 32:36
  one. No, no.
• 32:37
  I. Will.
• 32:37
  I Will. I think it's because I think
• 32:40
  it's because he is depicted as being from Latin America rather
• 32:46
  than from India or China. And that awareness of the
• 32:52
  potential, well, the offensiveness of somebody
• 32:55
  impersonating a person from Latin America who in certain
• 33:01
  parts of the world would not be considered white, in other parts
• 33:05
  of the world would possibly would be considered white,
• 33:08
  possibly. So yes, he's impersonating
• 33:11
  someone from another country, but it's not at that point and
• 33:15
  potentially sort of a few years on in the future wasn't
• 33:18
  considered as kind of, oh, he's just doing a funny, you know,
• 33:22
  he's doing a funny voice. He's doing a South American
• 33:24
  accent. His face is slightly tanned it.
• 33:27
  Are we saying enough of blackface but it's a lighter
• 33:31
  hue? Well, it is, but I think it's
• 33:33
  one that perhaps didn't resonate as blackface or brown face at
• 33:37
  the time. And also it.
• 33:38
  Would have been quite a common trope at the time is in, in
• 33:41
  programmes like the Saints and the Champions where they go on
• 33:46
  in different countries. It would obviously it will be
• 33:49
  set in, you know, filmed at L Street with backdrops and you'd
• 33:52
  get somebody coming in and pretend.
• 33:54
  I mean, Roger Delgado played goodness knows how many
• 33:58
  different nationalities in his career, you know, Indian,
• 34:03
  Chinese. He his, his, his father was
• 34:07
  Spanish. I think, you know, he was
• 34:08
  Spanish. He he played Spanish characters.
• 34:10
  Mother was Belgian. And apparently he.
• 34:14
  Used to wind Putry up by saying that he was actually a company
• 34:16
  because he was born in Bow. Yeah, it's an interesting
• 34:20
  argument because I was talking my dad about this recently
• 34:24
  because I've played them and plays a couple of accents over
• 34:28
  the years with varying degrees of success.
• 34:31
  And he did save me one time got in the world of like, obviously
• 34:35
  the word walk is big in the world at the moment.
• 34:37
  And I totally agree with the blackface if and he couldn't do
• 34:40
  that now and absolutely not. But he did save me once after
• 34:44
  I'd done a play and he said why enough?
• 34:45
  Do they not just get someone Northern Irish to play that part
• 34:48
  rather than get you to do the accent?
• 34:51
  I'm like, well, you've got better a point.
• 34:53
  You know, if you're going, we have to draw the line with these
• 34:57
  things like you hear in Big Finish all the time.
• 35:00
  You know, the American accent has been awful.
• 35:03
  And some of them are, let's be honest, why don't they get
• 35:05
  Americans? I mean, should it be that they
• 35:07
  get Americans in? I don't know.
• 35:09
  I mean, I think, I suppose the thing with with black face and
• 35:15
  brown face and yellow face is that there was an element of
• 35:20
  particularly to do with sort of abominations like the black and
• 35:23
  white minstrels. There was an element of sort of
• 35:27
  comedic impersonation and degrading, degrading the
• 35:31
  original people. And also as I heard at some
• 35:38
  point somebody say denying chances for people to play to
• 35:44
  act. And if it gets to the point
• 35:48
  where you're like, well, we have to have somebody because then we
• 35:51
  somebody else won't play that part, well, then perhaps that
• 35:53
  part shouldn't be, I know you need to have representation,
• 35:56
  but. It's not just the make up
• 36:00
  though, is it? It's, it's how the race is
• 36:03
  portrayed, you know, and whether they're patronized or
• 36:06
  condescended, like I think they are in say, talents of Wenchuang
• 36:11
  where they're not in the crusade where Bernard Kay has blackface
• 36:16
  but is playing a very sort of sophisticated character with
• 36:20
  layers. And it should be as problematic,
• 36:23
  but it just isn't because it's not talking down to the race.
• 36:26
  No, but it but it is, it is, it's denying the chant and
• 36:31
  Bernico is a very good actor, but it's denying the chance of
• 36:33
  an actor of colour to play that part.
• 36:36
  And there were actors around potentially who could have
• 36:39
  played that part at that point. And I think it's, it is that
• 36:44
  however they're depicted people, however people are depicted,
• 36:48
  they it is essentially racist. And the challenge just plays
• 36:54
  into the whole sort of Sinophobia of the time.
• 36:59
  But the trouble with aping that phobia is that you risk
• 37:04
  perpetuating it because you're, if you're writing a story about
• 37:09
  a time when people were very racist towards Chinese people,
• 37:13
  OK, you're going to do a twist where it's a Time Lord or, you
• 37:17
  know, some monster of some kind who's actually behind it.
• 37:21
  But you're still carrying on presenting people in the same
• 37:24
  way as they were in that story. I've gone off topic a bit here.
• 37:29
  Sorry. That's.
• 37:29
  Right now. So what do we what do we think
• 37:33
  then of Patrick Troughton doing this Mexican accent?
• 37:35
  I mean, there's a hilarious Mexicans.
• 37:40
  I think like, I think like I was sort of trying to say it's, it's
• 37:44
  something that at the time and probably until, I mean,
• 37:49
  depending on who you are from the position of sort of a white
• 37:53
  person living in Britain up till relatively recently, potentially
• 37:57
  you wouldn't think that it was that problematic because because
• 38:03
  of it could be that the, this kind of the darker skin tone.
• 38:10
  Oh, well, perhaps he's just tanned.
• 38:11
  Maybe that's what it is or maybe not.
• 38:15
  And like I said, in some parts of the world, people from the
• 38:19
  Latin American countries are considered white or not white.
• 38:23
  It's it's a bit strange of that I'm probably.
• 38:27
  Getting myself. Into trouble here.
• 38:29
  I think it's less about Patrick Trouse and playing another
• 38:32
  nationality and more Patrick Trout just getting to play the
• 38:36
  villain. I I think that's what they're
• 38:38
  doing here. The the the hero and the villain
• 38:41
  are being played by the same. Man and they have to be
• 38:43
  completely different to each. Other because otherwise it will
• 38:46
  be too. It will be.
• 38:48
  Too much for it. It'll be too difficult to to to
• 38:51
  make it more subtle. I did have to say for laughter
• 38:54
  though at the end there with the infinite slide at the end of.
• 38:59
  The Why are you doing it, Bruce? Sorry, I think I'll cut it there
• 39:05
  on that dreadful live reading.